How to remove thermal grease/paste?

[8eg]

What the title says. How do I safely clean thermal paste off of a processor and heatsink? I managed to seperate them without incident, but now I need to clean them off before I install the processor in its new motherboard. I want it to be polished nicely when I put on a new coating of Arctic Silver.

 

[dew042]

thermal grease? or thermal pad? if its a thermal pad, scrape off excess with something plastic, then...

goo gone is great, but oil based so you need to use alcohol or something else as a final cleaning.

alcohol, acetone are other good things to try, but goo gone has been the best I use...

dew.

 

[John]

I've been using Goof Off and Brake Cleaner for 5+ years now.

 

[Auric]

Isopropanol 99% (aka isopropyl/rubbing alcohol) available at your local pharmacy. Also great for bed sores! Schtuff like WD-40 will work but are not recommended since they leave chemical deposits by design. Paper towel can be used with the alcohol to remove the goo, then finish with a lint-free cloth, ideally microfiber.

 

[CMar]

Originally posted by: Auric
Isopropanol 99% (aka isopropyl/rubbing alcohol) available at your local pharmacy. Also great for bed sores! Schtuff like WD-40 will work but are not recommended since they leave chemical deposits by design. Paper towel can be used with the alcohol to remove the goo, then finish with a lint-free cloth, ideally microfiber.

dito

 

[aplefka]

Fvck, I used paper towel for both. I got this Arctic something cleaner where it first takes off the current paste, then you use this second stuff that's supposed to prepare it to be pasted again. I used paper towel both times so maybe you're not supposed to do that and that's why my computer won't work now. I really hope it's okay though. Fvck.

Anyway, that stuff cleaned it up real good, and it only costs about $5 at Fry's.

 

[imported_Tick]

Oh dear god. REPOST. It's called searching the forums before you ask. Do it.

 

[RKS]

coffee filters are good lint-free wipers

 

[dguy6789]

Lighter fluid is great for getting thermal pastes off.

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: Auric
Isopropanol 99% (aka isopropyl/rubbing alcohol) available at your local pharmacy. Also great for bed sores! Schtuff like WD-40 will work but are not recommended since they leave chemical deposits by design. Paper towel can be used with the alcohol to remove the goo, then finish with a lint-free cloth, ideally microfiber.

hes got it.

 

[jimbob200521]

Originally posted by: w00t

Originally posted by: Auric
Isopropanol 99% (aka isopropyl/rubbing alcohol) available at your local pharmacy. Also great for bed sores! Schtuff like WD-40 will work but are not recommended since they leave chemical deposits by design. Paper towel can be used with the alcohol to remove the goo, then finish with a lint-free cloth, ideally microfiber.

hes got it.

doesnt get any better than that

 

[mshan]

I think one of the above posters was referring to Arti-Clean. It's available at SVC.com for about $6 + ship: http://www.svc.com/acclean-60ml.html

It may be more than you actually need, but it does seems to clean the surface of the cpu and heat sink very well and it's not too expensive.

 

[uOpt]

Dishwasher

 

[wfn]

auric has it right.

i personally use alcohol / paper towels to dissolve the excess paste (sometimes it hardens if too much was applied and the system ran for a long time) then i use a microfiber antistatic rag that i got at tweeter for wiping down plasma/crt screens with some more alcohol to finish it off.

if you have to scrape of the thermal pad use an old credit card i found them to be the best at not scuffing the sink in the process.

one word of advice when dealing with the AS compound- make sure you wipe it off completely because sometimes it gets messy in the process and as you probably already know it's conductive. when applying thermal paste avoid putting too much on or putting in places other than the cpu heat spreader / core. dont leave it hanging off the corners of the spreader. the thickness of the compound layer should be roughly like 2 sheets of 20 lb stock paper stacked. make sure it's evenly spread, you can use a clean single edge razor blade for that.

btw, the coffee filter thing is awesome i need to remember that.

 

[IGBT]

..I've been using alcohol and Q-tips then blow dry wit canned air.

 

[Continuity27]

I just use ArctiClean and lint free cloth. It's nice when you're cleaning a GPU and it goes from white pasty nothing to NVIDIA etc etc, wit ha perfect metallic shine. :thumbsup: And then you paste right over it again. :laugh: